Oyo palm-midrib bullroarer pair

Source term: Bullroarer

At Oyo they tell how Oro and Egungun were once inseparable friends who went out into the world to seek their fortune. Egungun saved what he made and came home in splendour, a homecoming still re-enacted at egungun festivals. Oro squandered his, and came home poor, by night, naked but for a flat board on a string hanging from his neck, and with it he made a weird buzzing that filled everyone with terror. The Alaafin gave him into the keeping of the head of Jabata village, who was to let no woman see his nakedness; so Oro became the Alaafin's own deity. Palm leaf took the place of wood in one member of this Oyo pair. The midrib makes a long, slim shaft, while its companion keeps the more familiar form of a wooden blade on a twisted-hide thong.

'Bullroarer' of palm mid-rib.

Pitt Rivers Museum 1926.91.21, object description

Particulars

Object

Two bullroarers: one a slim, pointed blade cut from a palm-leaf midrib, 226 x 18 mm, with its cord wrapped around the shaft; the other wooden, 196 x 40 mm, on a long twisted-hide thong.

Function

Not recorded.